Table 2.
Mean Task Scores in AS, HFA and TD Participants
| AS |
HFA |
TD |
|||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| M | SD | M | SD | M | SD | Difference | |
| Twenty Questions | |||||||
| Question quality | 0.33 | 0.05 | 0.27 | 0.07 | 0.33 | 0.05 | HFA < AS,TD* |
| Questions per trial | 5.05 | 1.02 | 5.53 | 1.41 | 4.62 | 0.84 | HFA > TD* |
| Grouping (%) | 66.35 | 13.76 | 59.92 | 15.85 | 65.07 | 15.23 | n.s. |
| Guessing (%) | 14.76 | 16.41 | 10.55 | 12.92 | 6.38 | 7.36 | n.s. |
| Question discrimination | 7.86 | 2.17 | 7.13 | 1.73 | 8.13 | 0.99 | n.s. |
| Plan construction (mean QQ) | 0.23 | 0.06 | 0.19 | 0.07 | 0.24 | 0.04 | n.s. |
| Verbal fluency | |||||||
| Letter | 9.20 | 5.27 | 9.73 | 4.25 | 12.40 | 3.98 | n.s. |
| Semantic | 17.60 | 6.56 | 17.53 | 5.66 | 21.40 | 4.22 | n.s. |
| Semantic decision task | |||||||
| RT: category (ms) | 879.36 | 279.15 | 870.08 | 313.20 | 734.39 | 139.61 | n.s. |
| RT: exemplar (ms) | 1009.75 | 410.11 | 1011.88 | 347.32 | 853.44 | 205.02 | n.s. |
| Acc: category (total) | 27.13 | 2.36 | 28.33 | 2.35 | 29.00 | 1.13 | AS < TD*. |
| Acc: exemplar (total) | 25.87 | 2.13 | 26.53 | 2.59 | 27.40 | 2.26 | n.s. |
*
P < 0.05.
AS, Asperger syndrome; HFA, high-functioning autism; n.s., not significant; QQ, question quality; SD, standard deviation; TD, typically developing.